Monty Wrong..

Today I stumbled across another entomology fail. This time in an online column by Monty Don on the MyMail Garden website. Monty is a presenter for BBC Series Gardener's World and I think it's fair to say he's generally accepted as an authority on how to grow stuff, although in May he annoyed a lot of beekeepers when on national television he suggested people could plonk a top bar hive in their garden and leave the bees to it. No swarm control, no monitoring colony health, parasite levels, viral loads or even checking food stores.. an irresponsible approach the outcome of which would actually be starving stressed bee colonies dying out all over the place. A beekeeper did complain to the BBC and published their response online, strangely the BBC stood by the bad advice of their presenter.

Anyway in Monty Don's Diary was a short article about Wasps. In it he briefly explains a little about the variety of wasps, social wasp nests, venom and the genuinely useful role of wasps to the gardener as well as a few creatures that predate wasps. Unfortunately the photograph accompanying the article is quite clearly showing Honey Bee workers standing on wax comb.

Those "wasps" look suspiciously furry, and bee shaped.

Definitely not wasps. In fact the comb they're on contain capped calls honey. The article was posted in August 2015 and a quick glance at the comments shows at people have pointed out the error but it's not been addressed... I'd expect that lack of attention to detail from say an amateur blog written by an enthusiastic amateur but not a paid column written by a professional writer.

Vintage Makery Do

The excellent Vintage Cafe (purveyors of top notch coffees and gluten free cakes) organised the Vintage Makery Do on the 24th of October at St. Ninians Church on Chanterlands Avenue. Originally built in 1643 that weekend it played host to a variety of art and craft related stalls to raise money for the Hull Animal Welfare and the Homeless. Entry was just 20p per person or a piece of food or clothing for the homeless collection.

Some folks set up the night before but I was working late and was the last to arrive. I'd brought honey, lip balm, beeswax polish, propolis tincture, beeswax, propolis salve and cold process soap. I also lugged in a super of drawn comb just remind people of the bees' contribution and to advertise that I'm a beekeeper -although I suppose it's possible the 45 kilos of honey I dragged in might've been a clue o.O

I've set the table

The event ran from 1pm to 3pm and business was very brisk so I didn't get much chance to look around the other stalls but ones I recall were a gourmet chocolatier preparing for the November launch of Koh-Koh Chocolates, and I can happily tell you he's using quality local honey, near the door was Alternatively Useful showing soy wax candles, For the Love of Kitsch was to my left with a few curios and jewellery versions of everything from newts to elephants, local shop Chance Gifts also had a stall and YoungYarn a local company with a huge Facebook following was there too.

The first person to look at the table was a young girl, I gave her a free lip balm after all it's about charity, then it got busy. Most of my sales were honey in pound jars, about two thirds of that was set honey which I'd made for the first time this year although some people still preferred liquid honey. It's quite possible that some of the honey was made from nectar collected from the gardens of the households it was going back to. After the honey sales came lip balm then soap and a bit of beeswax.

In the two hours the event was open some 400-450 people visited. Some were regulars from Vintage Cafe, others had seen the event on Facebook and quite a few told me they'ed been passing by and seen the sign outside so popped in. After totting up Vintage Cafe had raised £85 for Hull Animal Welfare and a huge 15 bags of food and clothing for the homeless.

That's no Bee BBC

Whilst browsing the web at work and catching up on the world's events a few weeks ago I was surprised to find the Taliban make money from honey sales. Yep, they keep bees just like myself, Steve Vai and Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Who'd've thought it? It's mentioned in a page called Taliban expert view: Money from honey.

I'm assuming the 'expert' isn't an entemologist because the 'bee' in the photo accompanying the article definitely wasn't a bee. The huge faceted eyes are the first giveaway, too big for a worker, too small for a drone and too visibly faceted -bee eyes look shiny to us. The shape of the  back is wrong too, and it's only got two wings whilst bees have four. The first tergite looks to have some light brown marking suggesting it's a drone fly, Eristalis Tenax, which is a European member of the hoverfly family. Not only do they not make honey but I very much doubt they live in Afghanistan either.

You might make money from honey, but you won't get honey from that.

I messaged the BBC News Facebook page back on the 1st October to point it out, the message was read a couple of days later but there was no response ..so I sent a message via the BBC Complaints page. They responded eventually but seemed strangely reluctant to acknowledge they'ed posted the wrong insect:

"This photo was only included to generally illustrate this aspect of Taliban fundraising but we take your broader point and have changed it to an image which more clearly shows bees making honey."

I'm not sure how they're suggesting a photo of what was probably a European Hoverfly sunning itself illustrated fundraising through honey sales but they have now changed the image to one showing actual honey bees.

Honey Bees! They fixed it.

A more pedantic person might  point out that these bees are probably not actually making honey as they're standing on brood comb, brood comb with a fairly patchy laying pattern but I think it's close enough.

Feeding and Feeders

As the weather cools it's time to ensure the bees have enough food stored for winter. There's a variety of feeder types out there but I prefer to use large bulk feeders you can leave on the hives and top up without disturbing the bees. I only had two Adams Feeders here and as I've increased the number of hives a lot and have an out apiary I needed some more feeders. As I need to lug them to an out apiary I decided to go with Polystyrene feeders as I figure they'll be a little lighter to carry and the cost of painting them will be less the varnish I'd buy for sealing wooden -plus I'd not have to wait for the varnish to outgas before slapping them on my hives. I ordered four of them from Paynes Southdown Bee Farms.

Polystyrene National Feeders

They're made from pretty dense expanded polystyrene so should last a long time, however they do need painting inside to stop the syrup working it's way between the polystyrene beads and painting on the outside because ultraviolet light will damage them -yep they need protecting from sunlight. The transparent acrylic piece in the middle limits the bees access to the syrup chambers to prevent drowning and the chambers themselves have sloped floors towards the centre so every last drop will be available to the bees.

The Polystyrene National Feeder doesn't fit under a wooden National roof.

Following advice from the forums I started painting the insides white with water based  gloss paint. Whilst painting it occurred to me that these feeders actually seemed a bit on the large side compared to all my other kit. I grabbed a spare hive roof and tried to sit the feeder in it, as it would be if it was on a hive. It didn't fit. Paynes website does actually say "This feeder has been designed to work in conjunction with our poly national roof." However it doesn't say anywhere that despite being called "National" it does not actually conform to British National Hive specification which is published by the British Standards Institution (British Standard 1300:1960 which if you want to look at is described in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food's Advisory Leaflet 367). The specification gives an outside edge of  16 1/4" for components which are to fit under a roof with an 18 3/4" roof. This means the feeder does not work with the wooden National Roofs used by almost every beekeeper in the country. Looking at their Polystyrene Brood Boxes and Supers they do actually state they won't fit under a wooden roof so I'm not sure why this was omitted on the page for the feeders. I emailed Paynes suggesting they mention this on their page but they've not responded or updated their page which I'm guessing means they're not really bothered... so colour me slightly unimpressed there.

Cut down to something approaching National Specification

I needed to get the feeders on the hives asap and I'd already started to paint them anyway so I couldn't really be messing about returning them and getting new ones so I decided to cut them to size. The reason they won't fit under a National roof is the extra mass added on the sides and the top presumably because even expanded polystyrene as dense as this is weaker than wood. I figure that unlike a super or brood box the only weight these will be supporting is a roof and a brick so they'll probably be fine trimmed down. Initially I used a hot wire foam cutter clamped in my workbench but with the polystyrene being so dense it kept snapping the hot wire, I even used some spare mandolin strings as they were thicker but they snapped a lot too. After trimming about  four and a half edges the cutter stopped working completely so after taking that back I bought a fine toothed floorboard saw and finished the job with that. The hot wire gave a much better edge but the saw was far faster.

Sand in my paint

After making sure each feeder would fit under my roof I resumed painting. I sealed the reservoir insides with 4 coats of paint. I gave the bit in the middle which the bees are going to be walking on a coat of sharp sand  mixed with paint then another couple of coats without sand over that. The uneven surface created by the sand should give the bees something to grip on and reduce drownings. The outside got a few coats of Sandtex Masonry Paint which is also water based. It only took one and a half test pots. I opted for Olive Green to match most of my kit but I'm sure the bees won't care. With all the painting done I had another look at the acrylic inserts. They were a very snug fit in their slots and I felt they would probably cut into the paint so using a Dremmel I trimmed the length a little and smoothed off the edges and rounded the corners.

Modified but finally ready Polystyrene Feeders

With the feeders ready and my existing wooden feeders given a clean I was ready to pop them onto the hives and start feeding. All I needed was some syrup. For winter feed the syrup is made up of 2KG of sugar to 630ml of water bees which is about 2 pounds of sugar to 1 pint of water in olde worlde measurements. This year the price of sugar has dropped dramatically, apparently due to a massive crop in Brazil and the Brazillian Real dropping in value so it was cheaper for me to buy it retail at 49-45p a kilo than trade. September saw me wheeling a trolley full of sugar up Newland Avenue from Herons to the car. I also popped to Farm Foods and B&M to load up.

Last year one of my colonies came out of winter with Nosema and had to be treated and another local beekeeper who knows more about bees than me said he'd lost 5 colonies to Nosema over the winter. To hopefully avoid or at least reduce that I decided to treat the syrup with oxalic acid. Beekeepers call it Thymolated Syrup ('thymolated' relating to Thyme Oil). The recipe is over in the Beekeeping Forum. Basically you make a solution of Oxalic Acid and add it to the syrup.  The recipe calls for 30g of Oxalic Acid Dihydride to be dissolved in 150ml of isopropyl alcohol. Some people use rubbing alcohol or surgical spirit one chap said he used vodka. I opted for vodka too as it's food safe unlike rubbing alcohol so may be slightly better for the bees -the alcohol will be evaporated off when it's used but rubbing alcohol contains other ingredients to make it less palatable which I suspect may be left behind in the final syrup albeit in small quantities.

Making up the oxalic acid solution

I alredy had the Oxalic Acid Dihydride and popped to Sainsburys for the Vodka, got the cheapest they had. Sainsbury's say "We aim for our stores to be at the heart of the community they serve." The one near me is open 24 hours. Got to be said that if the heart of this community is a 24 hour off licence and tobbacconist I'd be a little concerned about the state of it's lungs and liver. The vodka was 37.5% and I measured it into a jar with a syringe then placing the jar on a scale added the crystals, gave it a shake and left it in a warm water bath to dissolve. When I made another batch later I used some even cheaper 22% Vodka from an off licence on Newland Avenue and that seemed to work fine as well. I labelled up the jar with the warning symbols on the Oxalic Acid crystals' packet, the recipe, directions and a skull and crossbones as I don't really want anyone drinking it. In the forum post the author says to make thymolated syrup add 5ml of the solution per gallon of syrup or if it's just to stop the syrup fermenting  add 5ml per 3 gallons of syrup.

Cooking.

Previously I'd made syrup in a big pan, it was slow and took lots of stirring. With so many hives to feed I needed a different approach and instead used my Burco Boiler and a paint stirrer stuck in a drill. Took very little time. You do need to be careful with hot syrup though as it stays hot for a long time and is really sticky  so there's a lot of scope for nasty accidents. I found that local wasps were pretty interested in what I was doing as well and kept landing on the boiler. I over filled my 18 litre boiler twice and made more than enough syrup to fill all my feeders. I added the oxalic acid solution whilst it was still hot and gave it a god stir with the drill. With the solution added the syrup slightly changed colour and opacity.

For the ladies I recommend the Thymolated 2:1 Syrup.

Putting the feeders on the hives and filling them with syrup it wasn't long before the bees were filling up and taking it down into the brood boxes. I think they took the first 2 gallons in just 2 or three days. I've got bulk feeders on 6 hives and the moment and the last has a couple of contact feeders which I'm refilling at the moment.

Looks like a tiny leaky in the wood

This afternoon I noticed a little congregation on the outside of one of my wooden feeders.I popped on my jacket and veil and went to investigate. They were quite intent on one particular point on the feeder wall. It looks like there's a very tiny leak through a knot hole so I'll be having a closer look at that feeder once the bees are finished with it. The polystyrene hives were quite a pain to resize but they work very well. When I've been to refill them I'm finding the reserviours completely dry thanks to their sloping floors, and I gather that if they're used with their corresponding polystyrene roofs they can be used as winter insulation -although they need a strap to hold them in place. However in the meantime I'll be sticking to wooden components in the main.

Labelling up Supers

A Natinal Super will happily hold eleven frames in which bees can store extra honey which the beekeeper may harvest. However that's eleven frames with a bee space on each side. What most beekeepers do to maximise the amount of honey you can fit in a super is reduce the number of frames leaving wider combs and less space in the box lost to bee space and foundation. If you were to put 9 new frames of foundation in a box things wouldn't go very well as the bees would make wild comb in the large gaps between the frames so instead you start with eleven frames then once they're drawn out you remove one and alter the spacing and when they're drawn out again repeat the process taking you down to 9 frames. To get the spacing right you can use plastic spacers called Plastic Metal Ends ..they used to me made of metal, now they're made of plastic. You then change the size of the Plastic Metal Ends to widen the gaps. I've tried them and to be honey I find it a bit of a pain changing them so I use the other option which is metal castellations attached to the inside of each super permanently spacing the frames.

Ideally the drawn comb will wind up with 9 frame spacing but I still needed a few 10 and eleven frame Supers to help me get them drawn out that far. Some of my existing supers were already  set at ten and eleven frames and one with plastic runners. You can't tell from the outside how many frames are in a super so I decided to make things simpler for myself by spraying the outside with the numbers of frames -or an R in the case of the one with runners. I also sprayed the number of frames in my nuc boxes onto them too as they look alike too.

Stencil time

With my increased number of hives I needed extra supers and got a set of six very cheap Cedar supers from Easipet via Amazon. They were supplied without nails or glue but it still worked out a pretty decent purchase as they were so cheap. There was the odd crack here and there but nothing a bit of wood glue and clamp didn't sort out. They were supplied with some metal runners which would be fine if you use plastic spaces I suppose. They seem quite good quality so I'll be using them in brood boxes instead. I put 9 frame 
castellations into all six of the new supers.

Six new supers.

As the frames got drawn out I switched them to the new nine frame supers over time. It's not exactly rocket science but makes things a little simpler for me.

It's all about the numbers

Clearer Boards

It's more or less the time of year honey supers are removed from the hives. A lot of people will have already removed them, I seem to do mine a little later than most as my bees are still busy bringing in nectar. To get the bees out of the supers there's a couple of methods people use one is a leaf blower to blow the bees out of the supers, it's very fast but needs a leaf blower isn't pricey and I'd need a petrol powered one for my out apiary. Another method is to remove the frames and brush off the bees manually with a bee brush -I've tried that and it wasn't a whole lot of fun. The third technique is a fume board which uses an unpleasant scented pad that the bees move away from leaving the super empty. The other method is to use something the bees can exit the super but not work their way back up through. That means using porter escapes which are small devices with a couple of springs the bees can exit through but not reenter or a clearer board which is a board with a hole in the top and some sort of mechanism below that allows bees out but makes it difficult for them to get back up. I made a couple of clearer boards back in 2011 using rhombus escapes -they're called Rhombus Escapes because well they're rhombuses and I'd guess they evolved long ago without being attributed to anyone in particular. Now I have more hives I need more clearer boards.

They cost about £20 to buy ready made but they're not exactly rocket science to build. You can make the Rhombus part from wire mesh and woodem moulding but it's probably cheaper ands a whole lot simpler to just buy the Rhombus escape as a plastic part. I bulk ordered 20 Rhombus Clearers, I don't need that many but have a vague plan to sell the majority on eventually.

Yeah, it's a photo of a piece of plywood. Gripping stuff..

A quick visit to The Wood Shop sourced me some plywood and three battens. Rather than use a tape measure I opted to just use one of my old clearer boards and a right angle to mark out the plywood for cutting. I cut is with a handsaw as it was a little late in the evening to be firing up the tablesaw.

More bits of wood, some brass panel pins and a cat.

The battens I held together so I could cut all three at the same time. Cutting all 12 side pieces one at a time would've taken longer and the way I'm making them it doesn't matter much if I was a couple of millimetres out.

Boards with sides attached

Using a pin push and taking a bit of care to line up the sides under the plywood I attached the sides to the plywood boards using brass panel pins. Not sure why I'd bought brass ones but I've had them knocking about for a few years so figured I may as well use them. I had considered gluing them but I was out of glue to just used more pins instead.

Hole saw. Horrible thing.

Attaching a hole saw to my drill I started cutting the hole. I've never liked using this holesaw, it feels like an accident waiting to happen to be honest. In fact one did. cutting the first hole the hole saw teeth got caught in the board so the drill span out of my hands and shot off to one side. It was a warm evening so I was barefoot, next time I'll probably dig out some steelies. I tried again and had better luck and had no mishaps on the second and third board.

Two finished boards

The boards made I then just had to attach the plastic Rhombus escapes. The first two I made I'd glued them to the wood but this time I decided to make them removable so I can clean them. I'm not sure how thick the plywood was but I had some tiny screws left over from restoring an antique Zither Mandolin Banjo last year which I decided to press into service. They were slot screws which are a bit hard to get started as in the wood but after an initial tap with hammer I was able to get them in. There's four screws per rhombus and the board can be slid to one side to release it from the screws so I can scorch the board and clean the Rhombus to avoid spreading bee diseases between hives. I altered the old boards too so I can remove them for cleaning as well.

The first pair of Rhombus escapes I bought were made by Thornes, the new ones are from a french company called Nicot who specialise in plastic beekeeping equipment. Apart from the colour and some minor differences along the plastic edge with the screw holes and logos on they seem to be exactly the same as the previous ones. They're so similar I do wonder if someone actually made a mould from someone else's product, we'll never know. Anyway now I have five clearer boards which should be more than enough for my needs this year.

Loves is in the air

On Sunday the bees were making the most of the weather. The landing boards were busy with workers returning hopefully with honey sacs full of nectar or laden pollen baskets.

Returning foragers

I didn't open the hives though, we'd had a few days of rain so I decided it was better to leave them to replenish whatever stores they've used than interrupt their work with an inspection. As well as the workers charging in and out I also noticed a lot of Drones ambling out and a few returning. In the video below the Drones are easy to spot, they're larger than the workers and walk out very slowly compared to the workers.

Drones heading out.
They'll probably wind up as sex murder victims.

There were a few drones returning and wandering back into the hives so I'd assume they'ed just been out on orientation flights -having a fly about to figure out where they live, maybe locate the Drone Congregation Areas. Drone Congregation Areas are as the name suggests areas that Drones from various colonies hang out and Virgin Queens go to meet them. It's a bit of a mystery how they decide the areas but it seems to work for them and somehow they manage to avoid mating with Queens from their own colonies. After they mate they'll die from abdominal wounds. Strange to think each Queen bee happily laying eggs has probably killed about 15 Drones during her adolescence.

Hivebarrow

Well now I have an out apiary which is great, but unfortunately I can't get my car near to the hives. Lugging supers of honey and bits of hive to and from the vehicle is a bit of a chore. I have a wheelbarrow on site and while I can load it up with empty supers it isn't the ideal for a full super (or two) to sit comfortably on. I've seen on the net that people have tried to make wheelbarrows accommodate hives such as adding wooden crosspieces or strapping a pallet on top to make a flat platform but with a centre of gravity so high I'd be concerned about stability. I was going to need to come up with a bespoke barrow specifically for lugging hive boxes. After a little more Google searching I found the 'Famous 500' barrow and another barrow from the same family which both position the hives over the wheel to reduce the load. I also found Buster and this one which have a platform resting on the barrow frame level with the centre of the wheel which would give the load a very low centre of gravity making them very stable. They're all basically a wheelbarrow with the scoop removed and a flat platform attached with something to stop things sliding off. Some have extra bits like holes for ventilating hives of bees on the move, cut outs for hand holds, cut outs for ratchet straps, large feet for soft ground and clips to hold hive parts.

Beekeepers are a thrifty lot and I'm no exception. As I didn't fancy splashing out on a new barrow or butchering my existing one as it's perfectly good for it's regular duties, I went for a drive around the Avenues looking for skips. There's always a few houses being renovated round there and builders often bin off deceased barrows. Sure enough a few skips later I found a knackered barrow. The wheel and axle had been removed, the powder coating was coming off and the scoop was battered and holed in a few places. I think it'd probably been used for mixing concrete looking at the state of it. I put it in the car and drove home.

Dead Barrow.

The sorry looking scoop was held on by six bolts. Two to supports above the wheel and four to metal cross pieces on the frame. The first two came undone with a little persuasion but the other four wouldn't go. Turning the nuts turned the bolts which had no slot or cross to stop them turning. I could've possibly ground off the bolt heads but it'd've taken time and a few Dremmel discs to do so I opted to remove the cross braces with a hacksaw. That done I returned the scoop to the skip it'd come from - I'm sure someone will pick up and weigh it in for a few pennies.

I got some 18mm exterior ply and guestimating the measurements used the tablesaw to cut a board a bit wider than a hive body and long enough for me to carry some other random gubbins at the front. I secured it with the bolts from the front of the barrow and jubilee clips at each of the four points it where it reaches the frame. To stop things sliding off too quickly I glued a lip at the front and the back of the board clamping them in place for 24 hours whilst the glue did it's thing. Then I decided to paint the frame. I should've really done that before attaching the board but it was just an afterthought. I gave the frame a quick wipe down removing the looser bits of powder coating, cement, mud and whatever then just painted over everything that was left with one of those 'apply directly to rust' type paints. I also added more varnish to the sides of the jubilee clip holes, where the bolts were and the cut sides.

Work of art.

The cheapest 14" barrow wheel I could find on eBay arrived next day. I filled the axle with Castrol LM Grease and bolted it into place. Being a cheap wheel it has no bearings and was supported on plastic bushings.I didn't now what Castrol LM Grease was and I'm not really sure why I even have a tub of it but apparently it's just the stuff for wheel bearings.

Rocket science.

At that point I tested it with a brood box and found just by luck that a box at the back of the platform sat comfortably against the bendy bits of the handles. I made a tailgate type thing from an offcut board with a couple more offcuts glued behind to hold it in place between the handles and varnished. It just sits there held in place by whatever's in the barrow.

Tailgate type thing

I had planned to make it a three wheeler to spread the load and raise the back end when stationary but after reading about different wheelbases in carp fishing forums it seems one wheel is easiest to keep stable on rough ground as you can't tilt a two wheel device to compensate to uneven surface. One wheel is also easier to steer. Carp fishing forums? Yep, the people who seem to know most about barrows are carp fishermen. They regularly lug about a quarter tonne of equipment across fields, through forests and over mountains in the pursuit of catch and release sport fishing. There's even an industry making rugged barrows and trolleys specifically for them to haul their fishing kit, tent, packed lunch, missing neighbour or whatever to those hard to reach bodies of water, so their forums are the best places to look for advice on barrows.

A slightly different barrow

With the barrow finished I drove it to the apiary where I've left it bikelocked it to something heavy till the day I need it as, like so much beekeeping equipment, it's very bulky and will only be used a couple of times a year.

Wasp Nest

Last week a mate showed me a wasp nest in a birdbox in a local allotment site. We stood about three feet in front of the entrance watching wasps coming and going and even though they'ed reduced the entrace hole using paper they'ed made we could see wasps just inside doing whatever wasps do when they're home. I decided to go back with some protective it -bee jacket, gloves and jeans without holes in them, to take some close up photos and video of the entrance. Would've been an interesting post. Unfortunately when I went back the wasps had been poisoned and the nest removed.I too some photos anyway. Going by their markings and the wood they've used for the nest I think they're Common Wasps (Vespula vulgaris) but it's hard to be sure.

Top of the dead nest and a few dead workers

The top of the nest was on the ground. A structure made from paper created by the wasps chewing wood. Like bees they mae hexagonal cells but they orient theirs vertically unlike honeybee worker and drone cells. They'ed made a five tier nest in the bird box and I think this was the unfinished top tier. I found the other four tiers still joined together floating in a water butt. Word to the wise: if you're throwing insecticides around keep them out of the water. The four other tiers were rectangular as you'd expect having been built in a birdbox and joined by a stem of paper in the middle -it was a bit lie a gross little accordion. You could see capped cells in which wasps larve will've been metamorphosing.

Worker Wasps and Larvae

There was a little group of dead wasps and larvae along with some of the wasp's paper that was probably over the top of the nest. You can see the size of the larvae compared to the adults.

Talking to the holder of the next plot along his comment was that if he'd known about them he'd've been happy to have the birdbox and it's compliment of wasps moved to his plot rather than poisoned. Wasps are pretty useful things for the vegetable and fruit grower, looking at a post from the resident wasp expert in the Beekeeping forum it's reported the average wasps nest consumes a staggering 4 to 5 tons of aphids in it's life cycle. That's a lot of time and money the allotment holder wouldn't have to spend on controlling aphids. Of course there's the concern about stings but I've not been stung by one for years myself -and as a beekeeper I probably meet more wasp buzzing about my hives than most.

Third one in a row

I know this is getting a bit repetitive but.. I collected another swarm yesterday. That's three in a week, and they've all been large prime swarms. This was near the out apiary and based on the location I initially thought they were from one of my hives but after going through them and finding I wasn't missing any bees I figure they were probably attracted by the scent from the hives.

Yet another Prime Swarm

Unlike every other swarm collection I've done this one went pretty much by the book. I held an open nuc below the bees a sharp shake dropped most of them into the box then I added some frames and left them to get in by themselves.

In they go

I was a bit short on frames so although it's a five frame nuc I was only able to put four frames into it. I've put a follower board in the gap and I'll just have to hope the new frames and foundation I've got on order arrive fairly soon and I'll probably move these into a full size hive asap.

Later this evening after writing the first half of this entry I popped to the bee yard to install a vent in the shed (gets hot in there, don't want wax to melt) and noticed a cluster of bees on the front on the nuc. Sometimes bees will hang out of the front of the hive if it's a hot day but that wasn't what these were doing and it half nine at night they ought to have been inside. It looked to me like there was too many bees to fit in the hive.

Overflowing

Lifting up the hive roof I found the airspace was packed with bees. They needed moving into a bigger hive straight away. Last week I'd ordered some frames, foundation and roofs but they hadn't arrived. Going on the FedEx website and checking the tracing number I was surprised to see FedEx thought they'ed left me a delivery card 4 days ago, I'll have to pop to the depot tomorrow for them to sort it out.. I could certainly do without that but in the meantime I needed to move the bees this evening. I had a ten frame super with new frames and foundation and a shallow brood frame for drone culling and a few crownboards so I popped to grab a couple of solid floors, a queen excluder and some gaff tape went back to the bees. I moved all four frames and the follower board into the new brood box and added the shallow frame.

There's just too many of you

With all the frames, follower board and adhering bees removed there were still a lot of bees left in the nuc sides -and there were still bees in the roof and on the hive front too. The frames and follower board left the new brood box half empty so I shook out the remaining bees into the gap and put the queen excluder over the brood box and the ten frame super above that. I'm hoping they'll head up to the super rather than drawing wild comb in the void but if everything goes to plan I'll be filling that gap with new frames tomorrow anyway. Bees were nosanoving at the entrance as I put the crownboard on. Unfortunately I didn't have a spare hive roof yet (thanks FedEx..) so I had to improvise a little. I taped the crown board onto the super so water doesn't get in normally the roof sides would take care of that, then put another floor and crownboard on top of that. Gathering a few bricks to keep it in place I found a double glazed pane of textured I'd found on a building site near Aylesburry a while ago. I have a vague plan to use it for some sort of cold frame type thing eventually. I stuck that on top of the crownboard and floor then put some bricks on top to stop it blowing off. It should keep things a little drier till I can put a proper roof on tomorrow.

Looks daft.
Should be adequate for one night though.

Bees in the Trees

On Tuesday evening I got a call from the Beverley Beekeepers Swarm co-ordinator about a swarm of bees in The Quadrant, just off Cottingham Road. Not far from where I live. They were up a tree but within ladder reach. I rang ahead and asked if they had a ladder handy so I didn't need to lug mine over, they did, so I borrowed some undrawn frames from the brood box of an existing hive and armed with a six frame nuc went to meet the bees.

They were indeed up a tree just behind a family's garden. They were on a fairly thick branch I could just reach by hand. I initially thought I'd just cut off the branch carry it down to the nuc and shake the bees in but that would've meant removing about a third of the tree top which I didn't fancy doing to the tree and wasn't certain I'd be able to support it from it's lowest point one handed from if I did. Instead I cut away some smaller branches so I could get in towards the bees then ratchet strapped my nuc brood box to the floor and carried it up the ladder along with my bee brush. Pushing the brood box and nuc under the cluster I gave the branch a sharp shake dislodging bees into the box and onto myself and quickly gave the branch a sweep with the brush. Then I carried the box of now rather confused bees and added some frames. with a large proportion of the bees in the box I then had to mop up the smaller clusters of remaining bees. climbing back up the ladder I cut of the twigs being occupied by little clusters and shoo each on top f the frames. At one point I had to nip down the ladder and whip off my jacket as a worker bee had decided to join me in my veil. Not what you want at anytime really and certainly not what you need when you're up a ladder with not much but bees to hold onto.

Dizzying heights of beekeeping

Whilst I removed the bee from my veil a few of the remaining clusters grew as flying bees rejoined their sisters on the branch. I got most of those by knocking them into a plastic tub and then tipping that over the top bars in the nuc. I also gave the tree a thorough smoking to cover any pheromones still attracting bees to it.

The bits of tree I'd cut off I placed in the plastic tub and they'll be going in a composter later. I left the nuc with the crownboard partially on for flying bees to make their way in for a while, it was late evening when I'd arrived and was getting dark by the time I left. Two swarms in two days. Busy times.

Bees in the Bushes

On Monday afternoon I got a call from the Council's Pest Control people asking if I wanted to collect a swarm of honey bees. They're pretty good with bees and tend to pass on accessible colonies to local beekeepers. So far I've been out for a couple of swarms that turned out to be Tree Bumblebees and once for Red Mason Bees. Standard advice for Tree Bumblebees and Mason Bees? Leave them alone and they'll die off in Autumn. So it was a nice chaneg to get a call from the Council as you know they'll've correctly identified the bees. These bees were in a rose bush over in Bransholme, the other side of the city.

I popped to my out apiary and piced up a 5 frame nuc a-when you have bees in two places what you soon realise is that whatever you need is *always* at the other location, even if you have two of everything. It's a quirk of physics or something. So a quick trip to my out apiary to grab the five frame nuc and I was on my merry way when the phone rang again, it was the council again. I thought she was going to tell me the bees had flown away but instead it was another honey bee swarm. I couldn't collect them too though as having been increasing my colonies I'm running out of hive parts -had to order a load of frames and a couple of roofs today.

I got to the location had a look around and couldn't find any bees but after a little hanging about and a little input from a couple of people in the building that'd reported them I was led to a rosebush and there they were.

Admiring the rosebush

It looked like a prime swarm clustered helpfully on an easily accessible branch of the bush. I drove the car round and unloaded my stuff -the nuc, smoker, a saw, usual bee tools, safety stuff and a water spray.
Cutting away a large branch of the bush so I could manouvere the Nuc brood box under the bees I gave the branch a sharp shake and as expected, a load of bees fell into it. I Placed the box on the ground and added three frames of foundation. Turned out the bees helpfully clustered on the easily accessible branch wasn't the whole cluster. There were bees deep inside the bush so I then went about removing smaller twigs from inside the bush and shaking them into the box too. It took a while.I then put the nuc on top of a plastic storage box to move it nearer to where the flying bees were buzzing about and put a crownboard over the top leaving two seams open for bees to enter through as well as the nuc entrance. At this point bees in the box were nosanoving to guide the other bees in too.

Bees Nosanoving on top of the Nuc

I peeled off my Marigolds er beekeeper gloves I mean, removed my jacket and wellies and sat on the ground waiting for the flying bees to make their way into the box. Occasionally a small cluster would reform on the bush so I'd get up and gave it a shake and a smoke. Ideally I'd've left the nuc sat there and come back in the dark but it was too public so I loitered for a couple of hours, talked to a few people who'd seen the bees arrive, stroked a Terrier and caught up on my Facebook newsfeed. Eventually I closed the crown board, put the roof on and ratchet strapped it together leaving just the entrance open. After a couple of hours there was still a lot of bees in the air and I was starting to suspect there were some orientation flights going on. Using the water I'd brought I sprayed over the flying bees and the entrance trying to fool the bees into thinking it was raining. It took a half litre of water and half the bottle I'd brought to drink but seemed to make a difference. I then blocked up the hive entrance before putting it in the car and driving them to their new home.

Okay so it's probably a cartoon wasp I found on Google Image Search.
Works better than a Keep Your Distance sticker.

I would've like to have left the hive closed up for a few days but the only crownboard I'd had available didn't have a feeding hole in it so ventilation was limited and daytime temperatures are pretty high at the moment. Using some ply I'd liberated from a skip previously I quickly made a new crown board and using my hive tool a little creatively managed to cut a round hole in more or less the middle. I then swapped the solid crownboard for the new one and opened the Nuc entrance so the bees who flew up could get back in. I'd moved the colony a good 4 miles as the crow flies so the bees should reorient themselves the the new hive and not return to their original location.

New arrivals

Framed

At the Beverley Beekeeper's Auction I picked up three unframed Queen Excluders -the wire grid that stops the Queen laying in the honey super. I decided to make wooden frames for them which should make them easier to take on and off the hive and give them some support -plus my motley collection of hive parts from various sources my supers didn't sit quite right on top of them without frames.

Unframed Queen Excluders

 I'd decided to increase my colonies this year so was going to need a few more of these -one per hive and a spare or two so I could swap out excluders covered in wax. Most of my excluders have a thin frame planed on one side so the Queen Excluder sits flat against the top of the frames. This leaves less space for bees to gum up with wax and propolis, however I've also found that my bees tend to glue these down very solidly which means I have to spend longer prying them up when I inspect the brood box. A couple of my used Queen Excluders have been constructed with the frame seated in a groove running down the centre of each side of the frame. This means the grid isn't in contact with the top bars which leaves small gap the bees could build burr comb but means they only glue the edges down making them easier to remove. I decided to go with this design myself.

Mao being unimpressed by the jury rigged tablesaw

After a quick trip to the Wood Shop I came home with three 2.1m lengths 2x2cm of PSE for almost a couple of quid a piece. I thought PSE  maybe meant Pine or Something Else but I googled it later and found it means Planed Square Wood, in case you wondered. Well I live and learn. I figure the width of the circular saw I've made into a table saw was probably about right for a slot the frame would fit in so lugging it outside and setting it up I popped on some ear defenders and cut a slot down the centre of each length.

The galley saw briefly proves useful again

After cutting all three I checked the fit. Perfect. That was a bit lucky. Lugging the table saw back inside I then hauled out the galley saw. This thing spends most of it's time just taking up room and I've thought about getting rid of it a few times but once every few years I find a use for it. I cut each frame side with a 45 degree angle keeping the slot on the shortest side.

Wire Queen Excluder and frame sides

After cutting 12 sides I pushed them around the frame, used some wood clamps and the workbench to hold them more or less together then went round the outside pre drilling countersunk screw holes. I put a japanned  wood screw in each corner to hold it together. Some wood glue would've been useful but I didn't have any handy.

One Framed Queen Excluder

I repeated the process for the other two excluders and finished before it got dark which is a bit of departure from my usual as I tend to finish up working via a shed light and my phone's torch depending on the state of the battery. I'm currently increasing my hives and with these three now finished I think I have one per hive and one spare.

Three Framed Queen Excluders ready for use

Swarm Time

So I woke up, as you do, went to make a latte, paused to admire the garden and noticed a lot of bees milling about in a different part of the garden to usual. Turned out they were swarming. There was a 3 foot tall cluster on the trunk of my recently pruned Pineapple Broom.

Accommodating bee swarm, clustered in an easy to reach location

To say these black bees are a bit prolific is an understatement. I've already made up one nuc that's now a complete colony and a second five frame nuc from them and they've still got two supers in place. It was very obliging of them to cluster in easy reach although I thought the Police helicopter choosing that morning to buzz about over my garden was a little untimely -however the bees didn't seem to care about it.

Textbook stuff

I placed a brood box with frames below the cluster, used a bit of smoke to move the top of cluster a little lower then knocked the bees into the box and put a crownboard over most of the top. Then it was just a case of waiting for the fliers to go join the rest. Simples.

Going in

Half an hour after starting I was inside drinking my frothy coffee and inflicting yet another video of bees doing bee things on my Facebook followers. After another half hour I wandered back outside to see everything looked quiet so it appeared my collection had gone to plan.

Looks good to go

I decided to put the swarm on top of it's original colony using a Snelgrove board so I could reunite them later.  I picked up the brood box complete with floor and took it to the hives. Lifted up the brood box and put it on top of the board. I had a quick look between the frames and was surprised to see a lask of bees. Where the hell were they? o.O

Didn't really take me long to find them. Instead of clustering inside the brood box with all its fresh foundation they'ed decided to cluster under the floor it was on. Not a huge problem. I removed a few frames from the brood box, held the floor over the gap and gave it a wallop watching as the bees dropped into the gap. Easy. However I then continued to watch as the bees promptly climbed back out of the box and took to the air. They weren't meant to do that. I'm pretty sure that in the books I've read they don't do that.

Time for Plan B. I have a little bottle of Lemongrass Essential Oil amongst my kit so I put a bit on the hive floor and on the back wall of the brood box. Bees seem attracted to it so I'd suggest not using it on yourself in the Summer.. I then put the brood box and floor back near where they'ed clustered and knocked a few bees off a log and into it. There were still quite a few flying but not really enough to account for the whole cluster. Eventually I spotted the rest. They'ed formed a new cluster. Not quite so easy to reach this time though. They'ed chosen a spot three metres up in some bamboo hanging over a pond. Excellent stuff.

High over a pond. Great.

I went back inside and got a step ladder, cardboard box and a big stick. Climbing the ladder and leaning over the little pond I held the box close to the cluster and knocked the bamboo with my stick. The bees fell into the box and I went back down my ladder. Unfrotunately as I climbed down most of the bees decided to leave the box. By the time I got it to the brood box there were only a few still in it I shook them out anyway. The few bees on the box were starting to nosanov so flying bees were heading for the box. I went back up the ladder and smoked as much of the bamboo as I could reach.

Let's try this again.

With the draw of the Lemongrass Oil and workers nosanoving (using pheromones to let other bees know where the colony is) the bees were definitely going into the box now. I'd left the top slightly open to let the bees in faster. I went inside to start writing this blog post leaving them to get themselves into the box in their own time. Then it started to rain. Heavily. Back outside I went.

Wet bees

The bees still on the outside of the box were waiting the rain out, and the rest had stopped nosanoving. Using a couple of plastic crates and a few lids I knocked up a quick shelter for them.

Improvising..

Cold bees don't do much and these wet ones were doing nothing. They'ed normally wait it out and resume activity when things warm up again. Unfortunately temperatures were set to drop so that wasn't going to happen any time soon. Going outside yet again I removed two frames from the middle of the box and used a couple of bits of cardboard to physically scoop up and drop in as many of the currently very docile bees as I could then replaced the frames. The ones left on the outside I gave a thorough smoking figuring the warm smoke should spur them into action as well as encouraging them the get inside. It seemed to work and soon there was only a few stragglers left on the outside.

Last few stragglers

I gave them an hour to sort themselves out then returned to find no more bees on the outside of the box. Carrying the whole thing over to the other hives I moved the brood box from it's temporary floor onto a  Snelgrove board on top the supers on Hive3 -the hive they'ed issued from. This time I could see the bees on the frames. I left one of the entrances slightly open so they could defend it easily.

The swarm are in the top.